MSNBC reports that the lack of temperature rise in the last 12 years has convinced environmentalist James Lovelock ( The Gaia Hypothesis) that the climate alarmism wasn’t warranted.
From his Wikipedia entry: Writing in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006, Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming, “billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable” by the end of the 21st century.
He has been quoted in The Guardian that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed “[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain”.
What he has said to MSNBC is a major climb down. MSNBC reports in this story:
James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”
However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far”…
…
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
…
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.”
This won’t sit well with many. McKibben has a whole movement based on alarm for example. Watch the true believers now trash him in the “doddering old man” style we’ve seen before.
hat tip to Steve Milloy at junkscience.com
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DirkH says: @ur momisugly April 23, 2012 at 11:37 am
…Icarus, I know you are 100% fact resistant… What’s your agenda? You can’t be as stupid as you pretend. WUWT has a sea ice reference page and everyone uses it. It makes no sense to spread such obvious untruths here. It just doesn’t work. So why are you doing it?
_________________________
Dirk, that is quite simple. Monty, Icarus WmConnelly and the rest are all here at WUWT because their echo chambers do not get any traffic. They are here to try and sway those who are unsure as to whether or not CAGW/Climate Change is real to their side or at least keep them doubting. That is why they never ever provide any proof but instead attack to get the WUWT regulars on the defensive hoping we will either ignore them or look foolish.
We are looking at the run up to another Political Gab Fest where they hope to push through the United Nations/World Bank Carbon Tax. Such a tax independent of sovereign nations is critical for advancing “Global Governance” Such a tax allows complete control of a country’s economy too.
CAGW has always been about money and power so it pays to keep those facts in mind.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:2005/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:2011/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1986/to:2011/trend
The 25 year trend that the IPCC put in the fourth report to show accelerating global warming, is actually lower now than when the IPCC put it in.
Yes, this is in the ultimate MSM….MSNBC. I cannot believe they published it, but it’s really refreshing.
Lovelock’s GAIA theory right or wrong, really has some credibility and is at least interesting.
I believe as he ages he is concerned about his legacy. He wants to distance himself from the politics, personalties and the general nuttiness of the passing fad and I cannot blame him a bit.
We should welcome him back to the real world, and encourage other scientists who have been drawn in, to escape from the cloud of alarmism. I don’t care if he ever becomes a full blown skeptic, so long as he continues to disavow alarmism.
“Monty says:
April 23, 2012 at 11:12 am
Well, Dr. Lovelock isn’t a climate scientist and I (and most other climate scientists I guess) didn’t really take much notice of his views when they were rather alarmist.”
Here we go. When an environmental scientist like Lovelock can now be dismissed as “not a climate scientist” after decades of being a climate and environmental scientist, purely because he no longer proscribes to the catastrophic prognosis of the climate alarmists, it shows that they have NO interest in the science whatsoever, and ONLY look at the belief of whoever is writing.
Climate alarmists are now a joke.
Freon? Freon is a nonreactive gas.
Tell that to the fairy tale speakers who talk of worsening weather without any peer reviewed evidence.
The weather is getting “worse than thought.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/#comment-689783
Arctic ice in sad decline.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
The heat is on.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2012.png
I cannot find anything on the BBC about this significant change… So I have tweeted Richard Black and David Shukman, to let them know. 🙂
A Man finds his common sense, what a relief.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
But where is R. Gates?
First the Vatican exonerates Copernicus and now this. It makes you wonder if they will throw in the towel on abiogenic hydrocarbons of Thomas Gold for which funds were wasted on a drill rig to nowhere in Sweden and in a NOVA episode to match their GAIA nonsense episode. The common denominator on these science farces is the waste of other peoples money. As in the case of the dry hole in Sweden, when will they realize they need to pull the plug on the exercise? This is a a form of sanity test for policymakers and anyone else who recognizes scarcity of financial resources at any level.
Avalanche Warming signs
Keep any eye out for any cracks shooting across the surface, or small slabs shearing off. These are signs of weakened snowpack. Also, listen for “hollow” or “whumping” noises as you walk or ski. This indicates that there is a weaker layer underneath, leaving the surface layer more prone to collapse.
A silent factor that once aided the warmist cause but is now hurting it is the general failure of renewable energy to live up to the hype, and the increased scrutiny its claims have drawn. A lot of people wanted renewable energy’s “promise” to be true, so they hyped AGW as a way to jump-start it–IMO. The enthusiasts aren’t publicly recanting, but their enthusiasm is cooling.
You may find that most commenters here used to be Warmists and had to suddenly do an about turn when they dug a little deeper. I am one of them and I vaguely recall so is Anthony Watts who was lead down the dark side by a state climatologist who told him to take a closer look at (Stevenson screen???) thermometers. 😉
One step at a time.
It would be nice if he also confesses that the Gaia hypothesis makes less sense that a Star Trek episode.
If the Earth is alive, then what is its life cycle? How it reproduces? Maybe it is pregnant and that is the cause of its temperature fluctuations 😛
I never took this man seriously. It is obvious that the Gaia hypothesis is a fairy tale he wrote to sell books. Pointing out a negative feedback or two is not enough to declare something alive. If it were so, my iPhone is also alive since it is capable of more than that. Not only responds to changes of light intensity but also responds to sound and pressure stimuli, yet, nobody claims (yet) that iPhones are alive. They cannot assimilate external matter, grow and produce descendants. They have no life cycle, therefore they are not alive.
It was amazing, though, that he could deceive so many people with the Gaia fairy tale.Maybe it was a test to see if the CAGW could be marketable.
Can we now expect breathless reacantations, in reverse age order ?
Who’s next ?
recantations
Billy Connolley says:
“I was invited to comment here (before the heavy hand of censorship fell).”
Outrageous and shameful nonsense. Could Connolley be any more hypocritical?? After years of blatant censoring of scientific skeptics’ comments at Wikipedia, Connolley is whining about something that never happened: he is still posting here, while pretending that he was censored! How does he reconcile those contrary ideas? Cognitive dissonance.
After being booted out of his government job, and Wikipedia, and with hardly any traffic on his blog [which he incessantly flogs in his posts here], Connolley seems to be at loose ends. Just like Keith Olbermann:
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/olbermann_at_loose_ends_tT0IsX1xU0GIk5AvvWy8II
How the mighty have fallen, eh?
Icarus62 says:
April 23, 2012 at 10:16 am
Unfortunately the evidence from sea level rise, global ocean heat content, ice melt and global temperature series all show that there has been no decline in the rate of anthropogenic global warming, so this story seems to be rather premature. Also, greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, so there is no reason to be complacent.
The trouble for you and your cherrypicking chums is that cherry season has ended!
But please stop chucking [SNIP: Language and civility. -REP].
“Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.”
Shouldn’t it really read “Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as WE CAN DETECT OR MATTERS A JOT and certainly we cannot attribute the observed changes to man’s activities.”
He should also apologise to all of us who have been victimized by the fascism he inspired and supported with his statements of certainty with words such as “will”, when in fact “could” and “might” were more appropriate. Not to mention the people who *have* died due to starvation or suffered immense malnutrition caused by the linkage of Food to Energy prices.
You have to respect the man’s honesty. Good on him.
Icarus62 says:
April 23, 2012 at 10:16 am
Unfortunately the evidence from sea level rise, global ocean heat content, ice melt and global temperature series all show that there has been no decline in the rate of anthropogenic global warming
Would you please stick to the facts instead of spitting out empty rhetoric?
1. Sea level rise is decelerating, current rate is well below 2 mm/year.
2. Ocean heat content rise is decelerating, for the past 10 years it’s an order of magnitude lower than projected by computational climate models.
3. Current global sea ice extent is 609,000 km² above the 1979-2008 mean.
4. Here you can find RSS Global Lower Tropospheric Temperature data (not contaminated by UHI). Trend is -0.028°C/decade for the last 15 years. You can check the math for yourself.
I could give you detailed references to all the data sources behind these propositions, just don’t have an infinite supply of time for fools.
The oceans constitute by far the largest proportion of the heat content of the climate system, and they show no sign of any decline in the rate of warming –
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-content-world-ocean-heat-content-and-thermosteric-sea-level-change-0-2000-1955-2010-by-levitus-et-al-2012/
Wouldn’t we see it there, if anywhere?
James A. Lovelock seems able to speak clearly without really knowing whether it makes sense or even worth, is providing support to the opposite of what are the facts, or is needed. For example, he gave a speech in Cardiff in September 1989 on “The greening of science” saying:
“Science must abandon its genteel posturing and come down to Earth again, quite literally. This is no easy task. It requires scientists to recognise that science has grown fat, lazy, and corrupt and like an obese atherosclerotic man, imagines that more rich food will cure his conditions”. (in: The Guardian, 29. 09.1989) .
J.A.L got what he wanted. Climate science abandoned any genteel posturing dramatically during the last 23 years.
Many years ago, around 1976, Dr. James Lovelock bought a number of our Gas Chromatographs to set up in the remotest corners of the earth to study pollution and its effect on the climate. What he found was an unexpectedly large amount of dimethylsulphide (DMS) in the atmosphere, and that acted as a condensation point for cloud formation. He was a paid consultant for the company I worked for, so he came back a couple of times a year, always willing to hold a seminar for us engineers, and at one of them he sprung “Daisyworld” on us, before it was published, mostly to see if we could poke holes in his hypothesis. It involved a world that consisted of only two flowers, black daisies and white daisies. The computer simulation starts out with a cold world and a weak sun. The sun warms up until suddenly black daisies appear and cover the earth. This warms the earth some more and white daisies appear. As the sun varies in intensity the mix of white and black daisies changes and this keeps the earth at a stable temperature since they have different reflective properties. He then went on to say that the whole earth is like a living organism.
He later presented the paper and the next year we asked him how it was received. “You won’t believe it”, he answered. ”Now there are people that actually believe the earth is a living organism. They demand follow up articles that justifies their belief.” Talking about religion the Mother Earth people now got their goddess, GAIA, and expressions like. “The earth has a temperature” became commonplace.
I have always had the greatest respect for Dr. Lovelock, and I welcome he is finally free from the clutches of extreme environmentalists.